When you are unemployed and wondering what to do next with your life you tend to spend a lot of time thinking, (Well, I do anyway. BTW anyone know any sports equipment manufacturers. I think I figured out that whole paralysis/concussion issue thingy.) You tend to do things like find out how many 15 goal scorers teams have. (Only two teams in the NHL have more 15 goal scorers than the Preds: NJD, and BOS w/ 7 2 others are tied with Nashville w/ 6; PHI, CHI.)

But back to the topic at hand. Nashville's hockey history and sociology is interesting. When Middle Tennessee lured auto manufacturing to the area they drew a large number of Detroit fans to the area hungry for hockey. They missed their Wings. With their numbers and voice they pulled the NHL to Nashville. Yes, for the first 5 years or so, the Nashville Arena/Gaylord Entertainment Center/Sommet Center/Bridgestone Arena was Joe Louis South. A sea of red which drove Pred fans NUTS and created a seething hate and rivalry.

Fast forward to the Balsillie mess. The fans developed and added to the 50 year history and they weren't going to let go of their damned team. The Predators fan base was the red-headed step child of southern sports. A niche sport within the SEC dominated sports world. If you followed my theory on the development of Southern Sports, yes the hockey was an oddity but also the fact that professional sports as a whole is seen almost as a second tier of sport in the American South.

While I was up here in NY state I watched the fan base galvanize and strengthen. You see Southerners love a good fight and they will take exception more than any other American culture I have seen to any slight to their character and their status.

Old terms like 'carpetbagger' came out of the woodwork to describe Balls. And, as much as some fans like to discredit him, George Plaster saw it first and saw it coming. He had a HUGE distrust of Jim Balisillie right from the start and as one of the large voices of the sports world he pushed the message of fighting for the Preds and seemed to be the only MSM member to be for the team.

Which leads to point three: The Tennessean Business Section. They saw the Preds as a sexy story combined with the lack of coverage of the Preds in the sports section, the paper became the enemy. With that, and the lack of positive coverage from traditional hockey media outlets in Canada: TSN, ETC. the Preds fans took matters into their own hands, again, and created one of the most developed and deep blogospheres in the sports world. Enriched it to a point where we have aggregate sites like smashvillians.com that collect the newest headlines and inform you where your favorite Preds blogs update.

The Red Wings, Balls, and the TNesean are the unholy trinity for Pred fans but you can make a damn good case without them the fanbase would not be where it is now. Arguements could be made of the 'Gold Record' crowd that was rooting for teams like the Knights and Dixie Flyers but the unholy trinity above added character to this group. Scoff at it you will, but I will stand by this.

The history of the NHL is chock full of such examples of enemies begetting enemies... Another such example within our division is that of the Blackhawks being responsible for the Blues initial existence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Blues

Quote:

St. Louis was the last of the expansion teams to officially gain entry into the league, chosen over Baltimore at the insistence of the Chicago Black Hawks. At the time, the Black Hawks were (and still are) owned by the influential Wirtz family of Chicago, which also owned the then-decrepit St. Louis Arena. The Wirtzes sought to unload the Arena, which had not been well-maintained since the 1940s, and thus pressed the NHL to give St. Louis (which had never even submitted a formal expansion bid) a franchise over Baltimore.

As much as Blues fans hate the Blackhawks, it's funny to think that they would have never existed w/out the Wirtzes!!! I guess we can all blame that on them too!!

Not the first example of that. If you look at the history of the Canadiens. Without the support of the Maple Leafs they Might not exist. In the Depression, the Montreal Maroons folded and the Canadiens were soon to follow but the Head coach of the Leafs left, with the blessing of ownership to become coach of the Canadiens.

When I talk about the TNesan. I refer to the development of the Predators Blogosphere. Intrical part of the fanbase development simply because the blogosphere IS the voice of the fanbase. before concepts such as on the forecheck and Section 303's webcast, the only real media coverage was the slanted views from TSN and the Canadian media. Even as an outsider reading the TNesan's web site the headlines over ruled the depth of the story. And just for one of the poster's views, Yes Larry I can feel your glare all the way here in NY, the TNesean has multiple departments who don't always communicate with each other. The sports section does not always talk to the business section. But the front page always seemed to be overwhelmed by the Business slant.

And from an outside perspective: thank God! Because of the business section's slant for the juicer story; we found out how incompetent the first ownership of the Preds was.

When I talk about the TNesan. I refer to the development of the Predators Blogosphere. Intrical part of the fanbase development simply because the blogosphere IS the voice of the fanbase. before concepts such as on the forecheck and Section 303's webcast, the only real media coverage was the slanted views from TSN and the Canadian media. Even as an outsider reading the TNesan's web site the headlines over ruled the depth of the story. And just for one of the poster's views, Yes Larry I can feel your glare all the way here in NY, the TNesean has multiple departments who don't always communicate with each other. The sports section does not always talk to the business section. But the front page always seemed to be overwhelmed by the Business slant.

And from an outside perspective: thank God! Because of the business section's slant for the juicer story; we found out how incompetent the first ownership of the Preds was.

Not glaring. Everyone has an opinion. I just disagreed with the comment that the Tennessean "refused to acknowledge that we did exist". I remember the excitement at the paper. I remember the special sections that were done - still have one with signatures on it from the meet the team the first year before the season began. I still have a copy of the front page of the special section with Mike Dunham in a USA jersey. I remember the suite the Tennessean bought and the 8-12 additional season ticket seats they bought as support for the team.

Granted the coverage isn't always what people want - newspapers have a tendency to look for problems to write about - that's what people want to read about unfortunately. I remember one of our biggest selling days when some unfortunate person (a minister) had his head chopped off. Everyone wanted to read that story.

The other thing about the tennessean that you fail to mention is that you had a beat writer in John Glennon, that did not have an ounce of passion for hockey.
His articles were stale and showed no creativity. He rarely went behind the scenes or added any analysis. It was basically just news wire reporting stuff.

Fast forward, the new beat writers, Jim Diamond and Josh Cooper [but to a much lesser extent David Boclair] have seemed to embrace the blogosphere writers and interact and seem to see them as near equals and developed together a info machine and following that has its own substantial contribution to buzz and the butts in the seats surge that we have seen over the past 2-3 yrs.

The other thing about the tennessean that you fail to mention is that you had a beat writer in John Glennon, that did not have an ounce of passion for hockey.
His articles were stale and showed no creativity. He rarely went behind the scenes or added any analysis. It was basically just news wire reporting stuff.

Fast forward, the new beat writers, Jim Diamond and Josh Cooper [but to a much lesser extent David Boclair] have seemed to embrace the blogosphere writers and interact and seem to see them as near equals and developed together a info machine and following that has its own substantial contribution to buzz and the butts in the seats surge that we have seen over the past 2-3 yrs.

Won't disagree. I was disappointed the John wasn't as enthusiastic about hockey as I thought he should have been.